The Riddle of the Sands The Riddle of the Sands is the story of Carruthers, a middling Foreign Office bureaucrat who decides to venture on a yachting holiday with an old college friend. But the yacht turns out to be a small craft, and the holiday is aimed at discovering why Davies (his friend) was almost blindsided by German yacht. Are the Germans up to something far more sinister? The duo discover Germany is planning to invade England. Erskine was one of the first to write a contemporary spy novel, playing up fears in the era preceding World War I. His stylish writing would eventually be adopted by British spy novelists including John Le Carre.